Italian general election, 1861

Italian general election, 1861
All 443 seats to the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy
Prime Minister before election; None;	Elected Prime Minister ; Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour ; Historical Right

Last updated April 10, 2019

General elections were held in Italy on 27 January 1861, with a second round on 3 February.^[1] The newly elected Parliament first convened in Turin on 4 March 1861, where, thirteen days later, it declared the unification of the country as the Kingdom of Italy.^[2]

Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates San Marino and Vatican City. Italy covers an area of 301,340 km² (116,350 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. With around 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous EU member state and the most populous country in Southern Europe.

Turin is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Turin and of the Piedmont region, and was the first capital city of Italy from 1861 to 1865. The city is located mainly on the western bank of the Po River, in front of Susa Valley, and is surrounded by the western Alpine arch and Superga Hill. The population of the city proper is 878,074 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million.

Italian unification, also known as the Risorgimento, was the political and social movement that consolidated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century. The process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and was completed in 1871 when Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

The election was carried out according to the 1848 electoral law of the Kingdom of Sardinia, in which only literate men over the age of 25 and paying a certain level of taxation were allowed to vote.^[1] Candidates were elected in single member constituencies, with a second round required in cases when no candidates received over 50% of the vote or the equivalent of one-third of the registered voters in the constituency.^[3] The Pope demanded that Catholics did not take part in the elections.^[3]

The Kingdom of Sardinia was a state in Southern Europe from the early 14th until the mid-19th century.

The pope, also known as the supreme pontiff, is the Bishop of Rome and ex officio leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. Since 1929, the pope has also been head of state of Vatican City, a city-state enclaved within Rome, Italy. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, succeeding Benedict XVI.

Electoral campaign

The Historical Right was led by the former Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, a long-time statesman and a leading figure in the movement toward Italian unification.

The Right group, later called Historical Right by historians to distinguish it from the right-wing groups of the 20th century, was an Italian parliamentary group during the second half of the 19th century. Since 1876, the Historical Right constituted the Constitutional opposition toward the left governments. Since 1882, its members were usually labeled as Constitutionals or Liberal-Conservatives, especially during the leadership of Rudinì and Sonnino. Few prime ministers after 1852 were party men; instead they accepted support where they could find it, and even the governments of the Historical Right during the 1860s included leftists.

Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri, generally known as Cavour, was an Italian statesman and a leading figure in the movement toward Italian unification. He was one of the leaders of the Historical Right, and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a position he maintained throughout the Second Italian War of Independence and Garibaldi's campaigns to unite Italy. After the declaration of a united Kingdom of Italy, Cavour took office as the first Prime Minister of Italy; he died after only three months in office, and thus did not live to see Venetia or Rome added to the new Italian nation.

On the other hand, the bloc of the Historical Left was led by Urbano Rattazzi, a liberal politician who was among the founders of the Italian left-wing parliamentary group.

The Left group, later called Historical Left by historians to distinguish it from the left-wing groups of the 20th century, was a liberal and reformist parliamentary group in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. The members of the Left were also known as Democrats or Ministerials. Differently by his Right counterpart, the Left was the result of coalition who represented Northern and Southern middle class, urban bourgeoisie, small businessmen, journalists and academics. It also supported a right to vote and the public school for all children. Moreover, the party was against the high taxation's policies promoted by the Right. Since the 1890s, the Left showed conservative tendencies, breaking strikes and protests and promoting a colonialist policy in Africa.

Urbano Pio Francesco Rattazzi was an Italian statesman, and along with the Count of Cavour, one of Italy's founding fathers.

In opposition to the two main blocs there were a third party known as The Extreme, a far-left coalition, under the leadership of Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian revolutionary and a key figure of the Unification.

Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian politician, journalist, activist for the unification of Italy, and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century. He also helped define the modern European movement for popular democracy in a republican state.

Only 418,696 men of a total population of around 22 million were entitled to vote.^[4] Right-wing candidates emerged as the largest bloc in Parliament with around 43% of the 443 seats.^[5] They were largely aristocrats representing rentiers from the north of the country, and held moderate political views including loyalty to the crown and low government spending.^[6] The right-wing leader Camillo Benso di Cavour was elected as the first Prime Minister in the history of Italy.

Rentier capitalism is a Marxist term currently used to describe the belief in economic practices of monopolization of access to any kind of property, and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society. The origins of the term are unclear; it is often said to be used in Marxism, yet the very combination of words rentier and capitalism was never used by Karl Marx himself.

The President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic, commonly referred to in Italy as Presidente del Consiglio, or informally as Premier and known in English as the Prime Minister of Italy, is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of Prime Minister is established by Articles 92 through to 96 of the Constitution of Italy. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President of the Republic after each general election and must have the confidence of the Italian Parliament to stay in office.

Parties and leaders

	Ideology	Leader
Historical Right	Conservatism, Monarchism	Camillo Benso di Cavour
Historical Left	Liberalism, Centrism	Urbano Rattazzi
Historical Far Left	Republicanism, Radicalism	Giuseppe Mazzini

Results

Summary of February 1861 Chamber of Deputies election results →
Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/−

	Historical Right	110,448^{[lower-alpha 1]}	46.1	342	New
	Historical Left	48,875^{[lower-alpha 1]}	20.4	62	New
	Historical Far Left	5,510^{[lower-alpha 1]}	2.3	14	New
	Independents	9,344^{[lower-alpha 1]}	3.9	25	New
	Others	65,406^{[lower-alpha 1]}	27.3	–
Invalid/blank votes			–	–	–
Total		239,583	100	443	±0
Registered voters/turnout		418,696	57.2	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

1 2 3 4 5 Estimate

Popular vote

Historical Right			46.2%
Historical Left			20.4%
Historical Far Left			2.3%
Independent			3.9%
Others			27.3%

Parliamentary seats

Historical Right			77.2%
Historical Left			14.0%
Historical Far Left			3.1%
Independent			5.2%

Vote by geographical area

	North	Centre	South
Historical Right	52.48%	68.00%	34.16%
Historical Left	31.21%	15.00%	27.72%
Historical Far Left	1.42%	1.00%	3.96%
Others	14.89%	16.00%	34.16%

Related Research Articles

Agostino Depretis was an Italian statesman and politician. He was the Prime Minister of Italy for several times between 1876 and 1887 and leader of the Historical Left parliamentary group for more than a decade. He is the fourth-longest serving Prime Minister in Italian history, after Benito Mussolini, Giovanni Giolitti and Silvio Berlusconi. Depretis is widely considered one of the most powerful and important politicians in Italian history.

The Chamber of Deputies is a house of the bicameral Parliament of Italy. The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform identical functions, but do so separately. Pursuant to article 56 of the Italian Constitution, the Chamber of Deputies has 630 seats, of which 618 are elected from Italian constituencies, and 12 from Italian citizens living abroad. Deputies are styled The Honourable and meet at Palazzo Montecitorio. The Chamber and the parliamentary system of the Italian Republic and under the previous Kingdom of Italy is a continuation of the traditions and procedures of the Parliament and Chamber of Deputies as established under King Charles Albert (1798–1849), during the Revolutions of 1848, and his son Victor Emmanuel II (1820–1878) of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont which led in the "Italian unification Risorgimento movement" of the 1850s and 1860s, under the leadership of then-Prime Minister Count Camillo Benso of Cavour.

General elections were held in Sweden on 15 September 1985. The Swedish Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Riksdag, winning 159 of the 349 seats. Its leader, Olaf Palme, kept his position as Prime Minister. He would retain this position successfully until his assassination in 1986.

A legislative election to elect the members of the 11th Imperial Council were held in Cisleithania, the northern and western ("Austrian") crown lands of Austria-Hungary, on 14 and 23 May 1907. They were the first elections held under universal male suffrage, after an electoral reform abolishing tax paying requirements for voters had been adopted by the Council and was endorsed by Emperor Franz Joseph earlier in the year. However, seat allocations were based on tax revenues from the States.

General elections were held in Italy on 22 October 1865, with a second round of voting on 29 October. It was the second one in the history of Italy.

General elections were held in Italy on 20 November 1870, with a second round of voting on 27 November. They were a snap election, called by Prime Minister Giovanni Lanza to take advantage by the Capture of Rome and to give parliamentary representation to the future capital of Italy.

The 1874 Italian general election was held in Italy on 8 November, with a second round of voting on 15 November. They were a snap election, called by Prime Minister Marco Minghetti to strengthen his majority.

The Italian general election of 1876 was held in Italy on 5 November, with a second round of voting on 12 November.

General elections were held in Italy on 16 May 1880, with a second round of voting on 23 May.

General elections were held in Italy on 29 October 1882, with a second round of voting on 5 November. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 289 of the 508 seats.

General elections were held in Italy on 23 May 1886, with a second round of voting on 30 May. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 292 of the 508 seats. As in 1882, the election was held using small multi-member constituencies with between two and five seats.

General elections were held in Italy on 23 November 1890, with a second round of voting on 30 November. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc emerged as the largest in Parliament, winning 401 of the 508 seats. As in 1886, the election was held using small multi-member constituencies with between two and five seats.

General elections were held in Italy on 3 June 1900, with a second round of voting on 10 June. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc remained the largest in Parliament, winning 296 of the 508 seats.

General elections were held in Italy on 6 November 1904, with a second round of voting on 13 November. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc remained the largest in Parliament, winning 339 of the 508 seats. The papal ban on Catholics voting was relaxed for the first time, and three Catholics were elected.

General elections were held in Italy on 7 March 1909, with a second round of voting on 14 March. The "ministerial" left-wing bloc remained the largest in Parliament, winning 329 of the 508 seats.

Luigi Ferraris was an Italian politician, who was Senator and minister in the Kingdom of Italy.

The Liberal Union, simply and collectively called Liberals, was a political alliance formed in the first years of the 20th century by the Italian Prime Minister and leader of the Historical Left Giovanni Giolitti. The alliance was formed when the Left and the Right merged in a single centrist and liberal coalition which largely dominated the Italian Parliament.

References

1 2 Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p. 1047 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1027
1 2 Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1039
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1049
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1082
↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1028

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[fn1-7] 1 2 3 4 5 Estimate

[NS-1] 1 2 Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p. 1047 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7

[NS3-2] Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1027

[NS2-3] 1 2 Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1039

[4] Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1049

[5] Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1082

[6] Nohlen & Stöver, p. 1028

v t e Elections and referendums in Italy
General elections	1861 1865 1867 1870 1874 1876 1880 1882 1886 1890 1892 1895 1897 1900 1904 1909 1913 1919 1921 1924 1929 1934 1946 1948 1953 1958 1963 1968 1972 1976 1979 1983 1987 1992 1994 1996 2001 2006 2008 2013 2018 next
European elections	1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019
Regional elections	1947 1949 1951 1953 1954 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1964 1965 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1973 1974 1975 1976 1978 1979 1980 1981 1983 1984 1985 1986 1988 1989 1990 1991 1993 1994 1995 1996 1998 1999 2000 2001 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2017 2018
Local elections	1946 1951 1956 1960 1964 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Referendums	1946 1974 1978 1981 1985 1987 1989 1990 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2000 2001 2003 2005 2006 2009 2011 2016 (Apr) 2016 (Dec)
See also: Elections in Abruzzo Aosta Valley Apulia Basilicata Calabria Campania Emilia-Romagna Friuli-Venezia Giulia Lazio Liguria Lombardy Marche Molise Piedmont Sardinia Sicily Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol Tuscany Umbria Veneto